What’s worse: a new Kool & the Gang album or a new Kool & the Gang Christmas album? After listening to the new Kool & the Gang Christmas album, I still can’t say for sure. It’s not good. It’s bad, but bad in a cheesy kind of way that lets these funk-soul originals almost get away with it. We find a bunch of reworked classics — a cheesy-groovy Joy to the World, a P-Funky Little Drummer Boy, a crooning duet of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (sung by Dominique Dean and Odeen Mays), an awkward diva-house update of Winter Wonderland — and a shimmy-able original, Home for the Holidays. Could have been worse.

Podworthy: Home for the Holidays

T’Cha Dunlevy

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Leona Lewis

Christmas, With Love

Syco/Sony

Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5

Winner of British reality show The X Factor in 2006, Lewis has gone on to an impressively successful career, fuelled by her TV fame, powerhouse pipes and photogenic allure. She loosens up on this retro Christmas album, a coy tribute to the 1963 classic A Christmas Gift to You From Phil Spector. There will be no equalling the original, obviously, but Lewis effortlessly picks up on the current soul revival, delivering three tunes from the Spector album — a swirling Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), the big-band Winter Wonderland and serene Silent Night — and co-writing three of her own, including the jubilant album opener One More Sleep and the cheeky pop ditty Mr. Right. Her strong voice and natural pep make the whole thing pretty fun.

Podworthy: One More Sleep

T’Cha Dunlevy

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Mary J. Blige

A Mary Christmas

Verve/Interscope/Universal

Rating: 3 stars out of 5

The queen of hip-hop soul finally succumbs to the allure of making a Christmas album on her 11th studio release. Overseen by David Foster, this collection has a slick, overproduced feel. Blige tackles a dozen classics with impeccable technique, but a lack of spontaneity. Little Drummer Boy, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and My Favorite Things are all fine, but overly precious. She finally gets into the groove on the funky This Christmas. It’s a blip, however. She’s back to adult-contemporary land on The Christmas Song, and teaming up with Barbra Streisand on the sleepy When You Wish Upon a Star. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer benefits from a great big-band jazz treatment. We could have used more of that kind of spontaneity. A treat for Quebec fans: she sings in fine French on Petit Papa Noël.

Podworthy: This Christmas

T’Cha Dunlevy

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Various Artists

Now! Christmas 6

Universal

Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5

The beauty, such as it is, of previous Now! Christmas compilations is that they interspersed proven Christmas classics from the likes of Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra with interpretations by contemporary artists, and the side-by-side dynamics worked to elevate the whole. On numéro six, it’s a mixed bag of not-necessarily-complementary current radio heavy hitters doing not-necessarily-necessary seasonal songs, with nary a nod to the historical giants of the genre. To wit: Justin Bieber (Mistletoe), Michael Bublé (Cold December Night) and CeeLo Green (What Christmas Means to Me). That said, R&B singer Divine Brown gets it on two tracks (On Your List and Joyful Christmas), while Lady Gaga fails to get it on just one (White Christmas, on which she — colour us surprised — finds a way to make it all about her, going so far as to offer a spoken explanation mid-song as to why she added an extra verse). Ho ho … hum.

Podworthy: On Your List (Divine Brown)

Jamie O’Meara

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Susan Boyle

Home for Christmas

Syco Music/Sony Music

Rating: 2 stars out of 5

Everything that made Boyle an instant if unlikely hit with audiences around the world — her unassuming, unexpected and thoroughly unpretentious performances and comportment — is everything that’s lacking on this disappointingly rarefied release. The makers of the album got everything they asked for on their Christmas-album wish list: it’s nothing but the biggest and the best here in terms of guest musicians, orchestras, choirs, studios, producers, kitchen sinks — you name it. Unfortunately, it’s a classic case of be careful what you wish for. Boyle’s vocal and spiritual warmth are overwhelmed by the oversized, overdone treatment — like everything was recorded in a cathedral for an army — assigned to the majority of the standards here.

Podworthy: The Christmas Song

Jamie O’Meara

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The Robertson Family

Duck the Halls: A Robertson Family Christmas

Universal

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Morrissey cancelled a performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live in February when he realized he’d be appearing on the same show as members of the Robertson family, the duck-hunting subjects of the runaway reality-TV hit series Duck Dynasty, whom he characterized as folks who “kill beings for fun.” Coming from the guy who kills fun for fun, one can only imagine what the former Smiths frontman thinks of Duck the Halls: A Robertson Family Christmas. Released at the end of October, Duck the Halls — featuring shockingly solid vocal performances by numerous members of the Robertson clan, with a shrimp-boatload of studio help from country icons like Luke Bryan, George Strait and Alison Krauss — flew to No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart, where it remained for three weeks. Y’know why? It’s ducky. Top seasonal tunes like Baby, It’s Cold Outside snuggle up beside such delightfully quacky cuts as You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch and the boot-stompin’ misfit hit Ragin’ Cajun Redneck Christmas. So Morrissey may have cancelled on Kimmel, but the Robertsons have ensured that not even he can cancel Christmas.

Podworthy: Ragin’ Cajun Redneck Christmas

Jamie O’Meara

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Nick Lowe

Quality Street

Yep Roc

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

It’s hard to think of many seasonal albums that successfully avoid all the clichés and still manage to capture a genuine warmth of spirit, but this is most certainly one of them. Applying his late-career small-band minimalism to an inspired blend of originals, covers of lesser-known numbers and even a couple of more traditionally oriented compositions, Lowe has made a thoroughly satisfying Christmas album that can easily be loved, even by those who despise the genre. And while songs by the ever-reliable likes of Boudleaux Bryant, Roger Miller, Ron Sexsmith and Roy Wood are pretty much irresistible, it’s Lowe’s own Christmas at the Airport that you’ll be lucky to get out of your head by next fall.

Podworthy: Christmas at the Airport

Bernard Perusse

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Julie Lamontagne

Noël

Disques Juliette

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Working with a stellar backup trio — bassist Dave Watts, drummer Richard Irwin and sax player Dany Roy — pianist Lamontagne performs a set made up largely of well-worn seasonal standards and places these chestnuts in a fireside comfort zone. Guest vocalists Ranee Lee, Bruno Pelletier and Jason Lang each make an appearance, with Lang’s soulful take on Joni Mitchell’s River adding a welcome touch of melancholy. Lamontagne herself is in fine form throughout, whether she’s swinging on Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas or waxing wistful on an inspired reimagining of Sleigh Ride. The spirit of Vince Guaraldi — which makes all piano-dominated combos playing yuletide jazz remind one of Charlie Brown — lives on in much of this warm and playful disc.

Podworthy: Sleigh Ride

Bernard Perusse

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Straight No Chaser

Under the Influence: Holiday Edition

Atlantic

Rating: 2 stars out of 5

Every winter’s avalanche of Christmas discs adds a new level to the concept of “unnecessary.” Straight No Chaser, a greatly talented 10-piece a cappella ensemble, piles more on with this yuletide followup to the recent guest-star collaboration Under the Influence. Every Day Is Christmas, with Colbie Caillat, is as insipid and generic as they come, a posthumous duet with Otis Redding on Merry Christmas Baby is both sacrilegious and inexplicable, and Paul McCartney’s appearance on his own perennial Wonderful Christmastime adds nothing. Buried among a handful of other, pleasant-enough pop songs is the mildly amusing Nutcracker, in which Tchaikovsky’s themes are enlisted to tell the story of a protagonist who hates the ballet. All in all, a superfluous addition to the group’s already hefty Christmas oeuvre.

Podworthy: Nutcracker

Bernard Perusse

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Kelly Clarkson

Wrapped in Red

RCA/Sony Music

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Considering its contents range from a brassy Run Run Rudolph to a trancelike Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel, the last thing Wrapped in Red could be accused of is favouring a single seasonal colour. Clarkson can’t be accused of many standard Christmas crimes, really: her song selection is thoughtful (particularly the holiday dysfunction of Imogen Heap’s Just for Now), the arrangements are low on schmaltz and high on class, and — notably for a Christmas release by a Top 40 artist — her originals don’t sound like they were conceived over the studio punch bowl. The title track’s Phil Spector homage and the rollicking Underneath the Tree are as engaging as any of the chestnuts, of which only My Favorite Things sees Clarkson lapse into her old Idol histrionics for more than a few notes. You can get only so excited about strudels and noodles, but the rest of the sentiments here ring true.

Podworthy: Underneath the Tree

Jordan Zivitz

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Bad Religion

Christmas Songs

Epitaph

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Whether an atheist punk band’s holly-jolly collection is approached as a joke or the ultimate proof of Christmas’s secularization, the a cappella intro to Hark! The Herald Angels Sing holds all the fervour that so many holiday albums lack. Bad Religion’s anti-beliefs may make Christmas Songs suspect to both fans and detractors, but as one of punk’s most benevolent frontmen, Greg Graffin doesn’t deny the sentiment of White Christmas, and invests himself even in the songs of praise. Aside from a sneering God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen that’s bereft of comfort and joy, and the inclusion of the band’s own American Jesus, any humour in the nine-song, 19-minute EP is more playful than satiric. Surprisingly, White Christmas doesn’t blacken when it’s cross-bred with the Ramones’ I Wanna Be Sedated.

Podworthy: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

Jordan Zivitz

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Susan Aglukark

Dreaming of Home

Aglukark Entertainment

Rating: 3 stars out of 5

In the liner notes, Aglukark underlines the distinction that sets Dreaming of Home apart from the company it keeps: This is not just a collection of Christmas songs, but “songs that bring me back home to Nunavut.” So for every Do You Hear What I Hear (sung partly in Inuktitut, like a number of other tracks), there’s a search for belonging along the lines of Talking Heads’ This Must Be the Place. U2’s Mothers of the Disappeared brings the concept near the breaking point, and Aglukark’s serenity is at odds with the song’s central despair. Her natural peace and the album’s defining quest are more affecting in the service of Scottish songwriter Dougie MacLean’s Caledonia and a starlit take on Amy Grant’s Breath of Heaven.

Podworthy: Caledonia

Jordan Zivitz

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